NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Events Moving To Earlier, Uniform Start Times For 2010 Season:
NASCAR and its television broadcast partners today announced earlier, uniform start times for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in 2010. NASCAR worked closely with FOX, Turner, ESPN/ABC and the tracks on this project for the fans. The race start times for NASCAR Sprint Cup races in 2010 in the Eastern and Central regions of the country will begin at 1:00pm/et, West Coast events will begin at 3:00pm/et, and night races will begin at 7:30pm/et. (The one exception is NASCAR’s longest night race, the Coca-Cola 600, which will have the same 5:45pm/et start time.) Following the invocation and national anthem, the green flag will drop at approximately 15-20 minutes past the hour after each listed race start time. A total of 28 NASCAR Sprint Cup races in 2010 will be held at an earlier time compared to 2009, with 20 races moved to 1:00pm/et, including the Daytona 500. Moving up the start of “The Great American Race” two-and-a-half hours will produce the earliest start time for the Daytona 500 since 2003, when the race was also scheduled for 1:00pm/et. Five races move earlier to a 3:00pm/et start and three races start earlier at 7:30pm/et. In making the decision for earlier, more uniform start times, NASCAR consulted its Fan Council, comprised of 12,000 avid fans who serve as a sounding board on important topics. Half of NASCAR avid fans said they are often unclear about what time NASCAR races actually start. When given the chance to choose a start time, more than two-thirds of avid NASCAR fans preferred early Sunday afternoon.(NASCAR)(10-7-2009)

2010 Sprint Cup Schedule Announced:
NASCAR announced today the 2010 schedules for its three national series, which will open their seasons at Daytona International Speedway on the weekend of Feb. 12-14, and conclude at Homestead-Miami Speedway on the weekend of Nov. 19-21. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will again have a 36-race schedule starting with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 14, plus two “non-point” events – the Feb. 6 Budweiser Shootout at Daytona and the May 22 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Other key dates for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series include:
June 27 and Sept. 19 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the respective openers in the “Race to the Chase” and the “Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup”; the Coca-Cola 600 on May 30 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway; the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 25; and the annual “Chase cut-off race” at Richmond International Raceway on Sept. 11.
The NASCAR Nationwide Series will again race 35 times, while the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series will again have 25 events, including one of the most intriguing additions to the schedule in the series’ 15-year history: a new event at Pocono Raceway’s 2.5-mile triangle-shaped track on July 31, as a companion to one of the two traditional NASCAR Sprint Cup Series weekends there. The Pocono truck race will be the only new event on any of the three series’ schedules. It replaces the truck series’ previous February event at Auto Club Speedway.

There will be some significant “shuffling” of events in 2010, compared to the current season’s schedules.

In the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series:
* Qualifying for the Daytona 500 will be held on Saturday, Feb. 6, the same day as the Budweiser Shootout. Previously, qualifying was held the day after the shootout.
* The season’s first Dover International Speedway race will be on May 16, before the all-star race and the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Dover traditionally has followed that consecutive two-week stop in Charlotte.
* Phoenix International Raceway’s first race will be April 10, with Texas Motor Speedway’s first event April 18. Previously, Texas went first in April.
* Also, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will have four “off” weeks including the traditional Easter holiday on April 4.

In the NASCAR Nationwide Series:
* A Nashville-Phoenix-Texas run on April 3, April 9 and April 17 will replace a Texas-Nashville-Phoenix spring lineup.
* The first Dover race will be run earlier than usual, on May 15, in companion to the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

In the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series:
* The Kansas Speedway race will be May 2, one week later.
* The series’ race at Dover, as in the other two national series, will be held two weeks earlier, on May 14, kicking off a national series tripleheader weekend.
* The Iowa Speedway and Gateway International Raceway events will be two months earlier, on July 11 and 16.
* Nashville Superspeedway’s date moves a week later, to Aug. 7.
* Kentucky Speedway’s date moves from July to Sept. 3.

2010 NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES SCHEDULE:

NOTE this is a TOTAL UNOFFICIAL Schedule: DO NOT make travel plans based on this information until NASCAR releases the 2010 Sprint Cup Series Schedule [late Sept?] or the race track has sent you renewals of seats/tickets with dates posted [and let me know if I don't have the date posted yet...].

So far thru September 11, 2009, many tracks (19 dates confirmed) have released race dates for 2010, so the schedule is starting to fill up:
Daytona (2/14 and 7/3)
Auto Club Speedway (2/21)
Las Vegas (2/28)
Atlanta (3/7)
Martinsville (3/28)
Phoenix (4/10 swaps dates with Texas)
Texas (4/18 and 11/7)
Talladega (4/25)
Darlington (5/8)
Dover (5/16 and 9/26)
Pocono (6/6 and 8/1)
Michigan (6/13 and 8/15)
Bristol (3/21 and 8/21)
Other tracks assuming their race dates, include the Coca Cola 600 in Charlotte (5/30), the Brickyard 400 at Indy (7/25) and Atlanta on Labor Day (9/5) weekend.
One rumor has Dover moving from the first weekend in June to the third weekend in May [5/16] as June has five races and only four dates with Memorial Day on May 30th in 2010. Which on Sept 1st, was announced and true.(8-19-2009)

2010 Schedule? close to the same? The 2010 schedule situation appears to be pretty much status quo with Dover's Sprint Cup date shifting back to mid-May [May 16th], more a result on the way next year's calendar falls with Easter [April 4th] and Memorial Day [May 31st]. There won't be any big changes on the Nationwide and Truck Series slates with Milwaukee's future still very much up in the air. The trucks will return to Darlington in the Spring and there's a report Pocono will also be added to its schedule.(RacingOne)(8-11-2009)